


Yonder ride the horsemen

by nohomies (kameo_chan)



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:56:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kameo_chan/pseuds/nohomies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They will always be each other's everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yonder ride the horsemen

Connor is four when Ma takes him and Murphy to Belfast for the first time, under the pretense of buying them some decent new clothes, seeing how they saw fit to pray through their knees more often than not. The bus is cramped, and Murph has to sit on Ma’s lap while Connor is squashed in between her and a kind-faced old lady who keeps offering him peppermints on the sly. 

Connor grins and takes them and sticks his tongue out when Murph sees and makes grabbing motions with his hand. He likes seeing Murph get angry, because it means that they’ll have a right proper scuffle when they get home. But despite all his deliberate teasing, he pockets a handful he’ll produce for Murph later, when they’re alone and Ma’s not around to complain about them not eating their dinner. No matter what, Murph is Murph and they are the best of friends and because of this simple fact, everything that Connor owns automatically belongs to his brother by extension. 

When the bus stops at the terminal and they get off, Connor is dumbfounded for a good minute or so. He’s never seen so many people in one place before, all bustling in and out and all about like ants. Murphy is equally silent. They cling to Ma’s hands, one on either side, like little monkeys as they take in their very first view of a real, honest-to-goodness city. Connor spots Murph’s thumb inching towards his mouth and he wants to point and laugh, but then again, he’d need to take out his own thumb first and that is just too much trouble right now. 

“Now boys,” says Ma, and this Connor knows as her Sunday Mass voice, the one that brooks no argument. “I want youse to hold on real tight. Move when I move and don’t when I stop. Traffic’s heavy around these parts and God forbid, the last thing I need is one of you getting run over by some fool thinking himself a race car driver.” 

“Yes Ma,” they both echo. When Connor looks at Murph, he can see his own wide eyes reflected perfectly in his brother’s. 

Twenty terrifying, wondrous minutes later they’re at a retail store. Ma mutters as she browses through the aisles, holding up pairs of pants for comparison. “They never get the sizes right, not with how you two weeds grow.” 

Murphy shadows her like Old Man Flannery’s setter back home. Connor can’t really blame him. The people in the store are strange and frightening. The women wear shoes with heels six inches high, and the men all have identical hair cuts. It’s nothing like their little hamlet, where the highest heels belong to the church shoes of Moira who works at the Postal. Everyone always calls her a tart for it. 

“Don’t you boys wander off now, you hear?” Ma chides, even though they’re right beside her. “I’ve no time to search for you if either of youse gets lost. I’ll just leave you behind for the welfare to collect like two little sacks of rotten potatoes.” 

Connor feels his lower lip tremble. He’s heard about the welfare. About how if you went on the Dole you were poor and strangers came to take you away and put you up in an orphanage. It seemed a right awful thing, just as the big boys from the prep school always said it was, and Connor had no wish to see the inside of an orphanage any time soon. 

“You won’t really leave us, will you Ma?” Murphy asks; voice pitched with a concern that takes both his brother and their mother by surprise. Ma always said that God had blessed her with at least one child who knew to keep his mouth shut in company, but today it seems her blessings have run dry. “I mean, how’ll Connor ‘n me know to find our way back?”

Ma is silent for a good while before she breaks out into her hearty laugh. It’s the one that says, _I’m laughing because I’m happy, not because of the whiskey_. And then she kneels down and hugs them close, and though Connor wants to protest that he’s four and shouldn’t be coddled like a baby, not the way Murphy needs to be, it does feel nice. 

Ma doesn’t often do such things, and rarely out in the open for all to see, and so Connor decides to forgive her it, just this once. Besides, Murphy’s grin over her other shoulder tells him that they’ve done something right for once. 

“You two will be the death of me yet,” Ma says, but her voice is lighter than they’ve ever heard it and the smile she gives them both is warm and genuine. “What would I do without the two of youse to keep my back straight and turn my hair gray?” 

When the shopping is done, Ma treats them to ice-cream before they have to catch the bus again. Connor takes vanilla and Murph takes strawberry. Ma takes chocolate, just because she can. 

To this day, Connor still counts it as one of the best memories of his life. 

****

Connor is twenty nine the summer when the news comes from way back home. He’s behind the wheel of a beat up old Lincoln, driving through the Nevada desert, smoking up a storm and eyeing the side view mirror from time to time, just to be sure. Even out here in the middle of fuck-all and nowhere you couldn’t take any chances. 

On the run for two years now, they’ve been and Connor can’t say that it’s as fun as he’d imagined it to be back when him and Murph used to play at being guards and robbers. 

In the back seat, Da is checking and re-checking one of his numerous handguns. Next to him, his brother is slumped against the window and snoring quietly. Everything’s muted enough that Connor almost believes one loud breath will shatter their entire world and bring them to their knees. 

Naturally then, he almost gives himself a heart attack when his inconspicuous, knock-off brand phone chooses that exact moment to ring. “Jesus, _fuck_!” Connor yells. The car swerves violently for one wild, terrifying minute before he manages to right it. Next to him, Murphy is wild-eyed and awake cat-quick. 

“Connor?” Da asks, as calm and impeccably cool as a fucking iceberg. The only indication of worry he sports is a slightly raised eyebrow. The gun he’d been checking clatters to the floor and Connor sends up a wordless prayer of thanks that they never travel with loaded weapons. 

“The fuck did you do that for, you fucking knob?!” Murphy screams and wallops him a good one right on the shoulder. Connor’s too busy trying to regain his composure however to lean over and sock him in the jaw in return. “You could’ve killed us, you daft bastard!”

“Shut your fucking hole and get the phone, or I’ll stick my boot up your fucking ass!” Connor snaps, fumbling at his pockets until he locates the ringing menace that got him in this mess in the first place. And if he’s quite honest with himself, he does try and aim for Murph’s head when he tosses the phone in his direction. 

Murph gives him a dirty, dirty look, but he slides the phone open and answers nevertheless as Connor manages to rope his jangling nerves together and pull over on the shoulder of the road. 

“Hello?” says Murph, and Connor waits. In the rear view mirror he catches Da watching him, and despite being a grown man, Connor feels a child again and with his hand stuck in the cookie jar to boot. 

“It’s Aunt Ida,” Murphy whispers, shielding the phone’s speaker. “Says she’s got news.” Connor fidgets with the steering wheel as Murph hums along to whatever their aunt’s telling him. And then, then the shit hits the fan. 

“She’s _what_?!” Murphy shouts and Connor nearly jumps out of his seat. There’s a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his belly, like a great big stone’s just been dropped there courtesy of the alarm in his other half’s voice. _Ma_ , he thinks; no, knows. 

Da lays one of them awfully big mitts on his shoulder just then, steadying him. It feels more like a paw grabbing hold of him than it does a hand, large and strong and callused, and out of the corner of his eye, Connor catches sight of a delicately traced wing etched in faded blue. When Connor looks over at his brother, there are tears in his eyes and he’s wiping up snot with the back of a hand. 

“All right, Aunt Ida. Tell her we send all our love. No, I don’t know. But we’ll try, by fucking God. We’ll try.” And then he slides the phone shut and sort of collapses back into his seat and Connor could swear that the stone in his gut just got that much heavier. 

“It’s Ma,” Murph says, brogue thick like it always gets when he’s right upset about something. “Ida says they took her up in hospital. She’s got lung cancer, real advanced shit too. They don’t think she’ll last the week.” His voice is steady, but despite it, or perhaps because of it, Connor knows he’s going ape-shit on the inside, where it counts. 

“What’re we gonna do?” Murph asks, and Connor hates how helpless he sounds, how helpless he knows the both of them feel. “She’s all alone over there and here we are, playing ring around the fucking rosy in the middle of a Goddamned desert!” 

“ _But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed_ ,” Da intones. Connor and Murph turn to face him at the same time, mirrors of each other as they always are and always have been, eyes wide and tear-filled. He is their only salvation now, this bear of a man with his rich voice and sombre demeanour. 

“Please Da,” says Murphy, crossing himself as though asking forgiveness. 

“She’s our Ma,” says Connor, hands wrung together and pleading as though it’s his own life on the line. 

“Steady on boys,” replies Da as he places a hand on each of their heads, voice as unhurried as the tide breaking shore. “I know she is.” 

Two minutes later they’ve secured themselves tickets to Ireland and fake visas and ID’s. Murph is out like a light by the time their plane takes off, a good five hours after Connor’s almost accident. Connor has the window seat and alternates between watching the world fall away beneath them in a lurching drop and casting furtive glances at their Da. 

“It’ll be all right, Con,” Da says from the aisle seat, not looking up from the small Book of Psalms he’s reading. Connor gives him a wan smile and sinks deeper into his seat, tries to get some shut eye like Murph’s doing, before he can spontaneously combust from the worry that’s eating away at his chest. 

To this day, Connor still counts that endless, breathless flight over the Atlantic as the most terrifying wait of his life. 

****

Murphy is sixteen when he’s kissed properly for the first time. It’s a deep, slow thing; a little clumsy, but he supposes that’s to be expected seeing as how he’s never kissed anyone like this before in his life. The tongue sliding against his own is slick and insistent and sort of suffocating, filling his mouth as it brushes along the inside of his cheeks; runs along the edges of his teeth and the roof of his mouth like brush fire. 

Murphy knows he’s always been a bit shy around girls, not like Connor with his charm and his smile who could worm his way into any heart – and underneath any skirt – he pleased. So it seemed to make sense to have someone as knowledgeable in the ways of women as his brother, teach him all about how to kiss a girl. 

“You’ve got to be gentle,” Connor breathes, his words catching in Murphy’s mouth. Murphy can taste them there, lingering on his tongue like an afterthought. “Girls don’t like it none when you’re hard with them. You’ve got to let things fall into place, as it were.” 

Murphy sucks in a breath when Connor leans back and bites at his bottom lip before trailing soft, open-mouthed kisses down his throat. “They need to feel special when you kiss them. It’s all about making them feel good.” 

Connor’s hands are warm under his shirt, smoothing along his ribs and Murphy wonders, vaguely, if any girl would be as forward as to touch him the way his brother does. Murphy hums as his brother skates a finger across one of his nipples, sending a bolt of red-hot sensation singing along his nerves. 

“Stop, Con,” he manages. “Fucking shit, if you keep this up, I’ll go mad. Thought you said it was supposed to teach me how to kiss a girl?” 

Connor sits back on his heels, and Murphy’s not quite sure, but he thinks he reads something like frustration in the lines that furrow his brow. The sudden loss of touch is surprising, and for a mad second or two, Murphy wants to shift up and mould himself to the whipcord line of Connor’s body. 

“Aye, it is. And that’s exactly what I was doing before you so rudely interrupted me,” Connor says belligerently, folding his arms across his chest. He’s always been faster and stronger than Murphy, but instead of it being a deterrent, Murphy has always viewed it as motivation. After all, there’s no better feeling in the world than sitting on your brother’s chest and pinning both his hands and feet with your own, savouring the sweetness of a hard-won victory when the odds were against you. 

“Bullshit,” mutters Murphy. “There’s kissing a girl and then there’s kissing your brother.” The words are out before Murphy has the time to think on what he’s saying, hanging heavy in the air between them. Connor’s eyes narrow dangerously and Murphy has all of one second to think, _I didn’t mean it that way_ , before Connor lashes out, fist landing an expert shot to Murphy’s cheek. 

“If that’s your attitude, suit yourself. See if any girl will have you when you can’t tell a proper kiss from your puckered arsehole.” But just as Connor makes to stand up, Murphy catches him by the forearm. Heart racing, pulse pounding, cheek stinging. And then without thinking, without hesitating, Murphy pulls him back down. 

“I reckon I could stand a bit more tutoring,” he says by way of apology, fascinated by how his breath ghosts hot along Connor’s lips. There’s kissing girls and then there’s kissing your brother, he’d said. But Murphy thinks that what he really meant was that he didn’t think any girl would ever be able to rile him up so good as much as Connor could. 

“Well then,” Connor murmurs, and Murphy can feel his sly grin as though it’s his own. “Shut it and let me do my work then.” 

They spend the rest of the evening pressed close to one another; skin on skin until Murphy can’t tell where he ends and Connor begins. As first kisses go, he has to admit that it’s pretty fucking perfect. 

To this day, Murphy thinks that there’s nothing any woman can do to him and for him, that Connor can’t do better.

****

Murphy is thirty five the day that Paul Smecker turns the world on its head and flips it the bird. There are no alarms, not yet, but Murphy imagines that they’ll start their tell-tale klaxons at any moment. Ahead of him, in the scantily lit gloom of the Hoag’s dreary, monotone hallways, he can just barely make out the flex of Connor’s back as he shifts to adjust to the cuffs that bind his hands. 

Everything’s quiet as the grave, most of the other inmates fast asleep and the ones that are still up duped into thinking they’re being transferred to some other block – or, if Christmas came early, another facility. Murphy figures it’d make sense to move them at night, when things are quiet and the Hoag stands dead and dreamless. 

It’s what he would’ve done if he’d grown up to be a Garda. Move the most dangerous ones during lulls, so as to avoid unnecessarily riling up the other inmates. Murphy grins, and in the dark, it looks as though he’s sprouted fangs. The Hoag’s a shithole, that much is true, but he has to admit that he and Connor had gotten more than their fair share of the Lord’s work done here. And though he does miss the Berettas and his Desert Eagles, he has to admit to the usefulness of a shiv in a tight spot. 

“Hey man,” Romeo whispers from behind him, and though Murphy knows, logically speaking, that they’re far enough away that the sound will not carry, he winces nonetheless. Rome just has that kind of voice.

“Shut up, Rome,” he whispers back. From somewhere in front comes the sound of someone shushing them. Probably Dolly or Duffy, but Murphy can’t tell. 

“Just hear me out real quick, _ese_ ,” Romeo murmurs. “I was thinking, you know, Mexico ain’t that far. I’ve got _familia_ there that’ll take real good care of us.” 

“That’s exactly why we’re not going to fucking Mexico,” Smecker says from close by, and Murphy can feel, more than actually hear Romeo jump. “You think the FBI don’t know just how many cousins and uncles and homeboys you’ve got? ‘Cause if you do and pardon my French here, you’re a fucking idiot.” 

“Yeah, well, you’re still fucking queer,” Romeo mutters, chastened but not ready to give up just yet.

“Oh well, gee skipper. I hadn’t fucking noticed. What ever gave it away, the fact that I love sucking cock?” 

Murphy has to press one of his hands to his mouth to stifle the laugh that bubbles up in his throat. Ahead of him, he hears Connor attempt to do the same, but with far less success. 

“Fucking Christ man,” Romeo pipes up again, sounding thoroughly disgusted. “If I’d known this motherfucker would be here, I’d rather have stayed in my damn cell. I feel all dirty and shit with this _hijo de puta_ walking behind me.” 

“That can be arranged,” Smecker quips, soft as silk and venomous as a viper. “And consider yourself lucky that I’m the one watching your ass here, taco-boy. This is a prison after all, and your Mexican ass is as fresh as they come. Should thank your lucky stars you were out of commission as long as you were, what with how the Hoag boys love themselves some Latino.”

“Shut up, both of you,” comes Dolly’s voice, angry and agitated. “I swear to God, it’s like listening to my ex wife, the way you two go at it. Bitch almost drove me crazy by the time she finally left me for some fucking West Coast playboy.”

“Aw, it’s all right, Doll. I’m sure it weren’t your cock that scared her off, just your poor social graces,” Connor sputters, and Murphy has to bite his arm to keep from laughing like a loon. Trust Connor to take a dropped ball and run with it. 

“Shut up, just shut the fuck up,” Duffy hisses, cutting in before Dolly can let loose with a doubtlessly furious tirade. Connor giggles and Romeo mutters under his breath. Paul is, for the time being, blessedly silent. The atmosphere between them is so amicable that Murphy can almost believe they’re all over at McGinty’s sharing a pint with Doc instead of trying to escape from a maximum security prison. The only ones needed to complete the picture were Rocco, Green Beans and…

“Da… I think he would’ve loved seeing everyone together like this,” Murphy whispers absent-mindedly. And just like that, the volume drops until their footsteps are the only audible sounds in an otherwise silent world. Everyone else pretends to be preoccupied with something else. Murphy knows why. 

The silence stretches out into unbearable territories, a brittle thing that doesn’t bear thinking about. Right now, Murphy knows, it’s about him and Connor and the awful truth they’ve been denying themselves for a good couple of weeks now by keeping busy with God’s killing and their own planning. 

“Aye, I reckon he would’ve been right proud,” Connor says finally, voice rough. The sound of his reassurance eases the dead weight Murphy’s been carrying around in his chest since their fatal meeting with the Roman. 

“You can say that again,” Paul supplies and everyone murmurs their agreement. 

On the news the following morning, reporters from far and wide speculate on the miraculous and foreboding escape of two of the FBI’s most wanted. Murphy listens to the hype on the radio along with Connor from the back of a hideous decaled van Uncle Cesar managed to procure for them through unspecified means. 

“You think the boys’ll get into trouble?” he asks, chewing thoughtfully at his bottom lip.

“We’ll just have to go rescue them then, if they do,” Connor answers, racking one of his Eagles with a swift, precise movement. “After all, we’re shepherds tending to our flock, aren’t we?” The smile Connor gives him then is more wolf than herdsman though, but Murphy has learned long since that the distinction between predator and prey is really only as thick as the blood that flows through one’s veins.

To this day, Murphy knows that he’ll never forget the promise he saw in his brother’s eyes as they drove off towards a new life. 

****

“I think I could get used to this,” Connor says, leaning half-naked in the frame of their bedroom door, cigarette dangling precariously from his bottom lip. They have a two bedroom apartment close by the beach, but seeing as they’ve never had much use for separate rooms in their shared life, they’ve converted the spare to part weapons store and part religious shrine. 

“Aye,” Murphy concurs, and crooks a finger at Connor. They’ve got a double bed too, but this one doesn’t creak and actually has about two feet of mattress between it and the base. Connor smiles lazily, stubs out the cig on his way over and slides over Murphy like melting butter. 

“Always wanted to explore South America, do you remember? We used to pretend to dig up Aztec gold in Mrs O’Brien’s backyard,” Connor recalls, tracing the spider web of scars that criss-cross Murphy’s skin like a crudely drawn treasure map. 

“And she’d scold us and tell on us to Ma,” Murphy continues, sliding his hands up and across Connor’s back, feeling the bunch and pull of the muscles there. 

“And Ma always made us go to Penitence for it, even though it was such a stupid, shitty little thing to get upset over.” Connor mouths the words against the sensitive skin behind Murphy’s ear, like a prayer almost. 

“We had some pretty good times growing up, didn’t we Con?” Murphy asks with a wide smile and a nip to Connor’s jaw. 

“That we did, brother dear, that we did.” When Connor’s mouth finally meets Murphy’s, slow and perfect and so very them, it’s as though the world forgets to turn. Murphy surges up into the kiss, hungry and uninhibited and eager to answer the siren call of his other half’s jackhammer pulse. 

“It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do this,” Murphy says pensively as Connor slides down his stomach, trailing kisses all over. “Too long, by half.” 

“Then let’s make it count,” Connor says with a devilish grin, before popping the button on Murphy’s jeans and shimmying them down his hips. “After all, who knows when next the time’ll come around, what with us being the right hand of doom and all.” 

“Amen to that,” Murphy breathes and closes his eyes as Connor’s mouth finds his cock and sensation pours over him like a waterfall. 

There’s precious little talk after that, save for the occasional calling of a name and a curse here and there for good measure. Connor is on top of him, over him and inside of him and everywhere all at once while Murphy twists and growls and clutches tighter with his legs around his brother’s waist. 

And if they’re a lot closer for a pair of twins than God normally ordains such matters, well, it goes without saying that He should have fucking thought about the consequences long before their father had first laid eyes on their mother. By the by, you couldn’t righteously smite the wicked without getting your hands a little dirty, so to speak. 

And if having dirty hands means bearing this cross between them, well... Even saints are allowed certain concessions sometimes, Connor thinks. 

After all, when you get right down to it, the both of them are still only human. And Murphy thinks that that’s just fine.


End file.
